Title: Social Suicide
Author: Lost Experiment
Rating: PG-13 ish. (T)
Warnings/Pairings: If you haven't beaten KH2 or played Chain of Memories there could be some spoiler issues. There are no pairings in this particular chapter, but this fic will end up containing a relationship between Axel, Roxas and Sora, or rather…well, I'll leave it up to you to work out the eventual capacities, and start providing proper warnings when it's appropriate to do so.
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts is the intellectual property of Disney and Square Enix. Disney's Hercules is...well, the intellectual property of Disney.
Summary: Axel had only switched sides to see Roxas one last time but Hades doesn't have to know that, as the consequences of helping save the world have afforded Axel one more chance to find his heart…that is if he doesn't screw up first.
Author's Notes: One of my very favorite old stories. I'm trying to foist motivations on myself to continue it along with Headlines and another non- KH fic I'm working on. Headlines is my 'whodunnit' story (I have a soft spot for Mysteries) and this is my "Next-Life" fandom-specific tale. I own neither KH nor the Bad Religion song this fic is named for. As always, please review. It's your choice of course, but it sure gives me a smile – even if it's critique.
The first thing Axel noticed is how unbearably hot it was. The uncomfortable prickling of overheated flesh assailed his senses, and he shifted uncomfortably. Having controlled the element of fire throughout his existence, the sensation was nothing if not weird. He was also aware that it was quite dark, and that's because his eyes were closed. Whatever was under him felt hard and so he determined that he must have passed out somewhere on the ground. None of that would be even half so strange if he didn't know he wasn't supposed to exist at all. Not even as a Nobody. He'd faded to darkness after helping Sora, and that was that.
It was still dark when he opened his eyes. Dim might have been a better description, as the only light came from small glowing orbs drifting lazily through the air like oversized snowflakes.
Pulling himself to his feet and deciding not to question an undeniably good thing, Axel's eyes darted around the cave. No clue came as to where he was, so he picked a direction and started walking.
The cave passages opened into an antechamber of rock ledges leading upwards. No sooner had the Nobody stepped through the doorway than a burst of flame that he had certainly not created spouted in front of him, dying away before Axel could get over the initial shock to reveal a humanoid male with blue skin, and bright white-blue flames where his hair should be.
"Heeey kiddo! Been waitin' for you to wake up!" he stalked up to Axel and unabashedly threw an arm around his shoulders. His skin felt just as hot as the unbearable temperature, and where the thick blue arm brushed his unprotected neck, Axel could feel an angry red burn start to form.
"My name's Axel." he struggled a bit, unable to escape the arm but alleviating the heat against his skin. "Got it memorized?" he couldn't help adding in an endeavor to at least bring some normalcy back to the situation.
"Yes yes. Well, welcome just the same."
"What is this place?" Axel asked, warily. Despite the situation being unduly strange and getting more so by the second, the blue-man sounded smarmy. In fact, he reminded Axel a lot of himself and that was more than enough to put the Nobody on his guard. Oddly, there was something somewhat familiar about this guy, but he knew he'd never met him before. Perhaps Xemnas or one of the others in the Organization had mentioned him.
"I'm Hades: God of the Underworld. Y'see, kid, when people die their souls end up coming here. Sometimes they're lovely little buggers and I don't end up having much to do with them. Good, happy lives. Then, there are people like you. Hmmm..." He trailed off, grabbing a piece of paper from seemingly thin air. Ooooh, kid, I really like you."
"Axel." Axel reminded him, though distractedly as his mind processed the information.
"Murder. Betrayal. Betrayal is underlined. Oooh, and it's in bold caps too! Well, never mind. We've got all the time in the world to go over it. Anyway, it's people like you whom I get to punish for all eternity with delightfully ironic torture. In short, welcome to...er, well I believe you'd probably call it 'Hell'."
"Wait a minute. I was a Nobody, and I had no Heart! Evidently, I still don't since I'm still me and not my 'Other'. How did I end up here?"
Hades pursued his document a second time, his face falling as he did so. "Ah, crap. I hate fine print. It seems that in spite of your transgressions, you ended up here because you did some decent things near the end of your um, existence. Since you didn't have a heart your choices in life are not necessarily judged on the same grounds that a normal human's would. I'm supposed to give you another chance. You get to return to existence, as you were."
It took effort for Axel to measure his reaction. Inwardly though, he was grinning maniacally. A second chance. Give him his existence back and just watch his smoke. First get Roxas back, then the two of them could exist together for all eternity. Of course, that thought lasted only so long. "What's the catch?" he asked.
"Catch?" Hades said innocently, and Axel was not fooled.
"Of course. There's always a catch. You wouldn't let me go so easily."
"That's the bad part about you bad-guy types." the God sighed lustily. "You're too suspicious. Thing is kid, you're on a time limit, so to speak."
"So I turn into a pumpkin at midnight?" Axel was starting to get some of his confidence back. They were on grounds he knew now.
"Well, the first stipulation is that you've gotta do some good for the universe." Hades was looking as though it pained him to admit this to Axel. "None of this running around and stabbing people in the back, or you come straight back here."
Axel half-grinned and half-pouted. The demise of Vexen, Larexene and Marluxia had been one of his finest moments. That information also killed his 'remove Sora's heart' plan. Given the choice between being a friendly bugger and 'delightfully ironic torture', he'd rather make nice.
"Secondly, you have to retrieve your heart."
"I have to find my other?"
"Not exactly. Your 'Other' or rather, your 'Heartless' was definitely destroyed. I believe in Agrabah, though that's not important."
Axel's first thought to that was that he really hoped his Heartless wasn't one of those fire-breathing fat bandits, but he turned his thoughts more readily to the idea of this task. "So, if I don't have an Other to reunite with, then how the hell do I get a heart?"
"You'll have to figure that one out for yourself." there was a note of glee in the god's tone, and Axel groaned. "Of course, if you fail to make any progress in this, you'll come straight back to me."
"How long do I have?"
"As long as you're making an effort."
"How will you know if I'm making an effort?" Axel asked slyly.
"God of the Underworld, kid." Hades smiled toothily down at him, and Axel knew he'd been right. Here was someone who knew how to play the game just as well as he did, with the added luxury of divine power. He couldn't charm or double-talk him like he'd been able to with Marluxia or even to a certain extent, Sora. That meant time for Plan B.
It was rare that Axel shut down all semblance of emotional pretense, but he decided that in a situation like this, it was probably the safest bet for getting a straight answer.
In a voice that accurately mirrored his state as a Nobody, Axel fixed Hades with a singularly empty look and asked in no uncertain terms the way to the nearest exit. It was all he could do to actually maintain a sense of preternatural disinterest when he still got a mile-a-minute answer in return. "Kid, you didn't really think I was going to get you out of here out of here, did you? I mean, you can go up top, but the WORLD, well now that's a different story. I'm a busy god, places to go, souls to torment...er, judge y'see. So now, off you go, over that way and I'd suggest just between you and me that you think of a plan soon or you're never getting out!"
Hades was gone in another burst of brimstone and Axel reeled; not just because of how odd it felt to have fire as a weakness as opposed to an ally. His mind was spinning circles like a hamster on a wheel, but he tried to reassure himself. He'd always been good at this kind of a thing. He could get himself out of this mess, just like he'd maneuvered his way out of countless others. Wasn't he on his third lifetime after all? None of the other Organization members, not even Xemnas himself could claim the same.
The thought put fresh determination into him. He'd have to be a little more careful about what he did this time though. There was no doubt that he'd already answered his own question as to what to try first with the heart issue. He'd need to find Sora. That was his strongest link before he'd died, and it made perfect sense to pick up there.
This left the more pressing issue of how exactly he was going to get off this forsaken rock. The World that Never Was and the powers its existence had afforded him were long gone. Not to mention he was quite sure that even if he'd had the power to reopen dark pathways to travel, doing so was probably a good way to botch his third chance before he'd even got started.
All he could do was retrace his steps down the passage way in the opposite direction he'd been going when he'd run across the god. The drifting Spirits seemed to be thicker and more luminescent in this section suggesting he must be going the right way, but he couldn't shake a sense of what could only be described as impending doom.
Perhaps he was still more underconfident in his chances than he was willing to admit, but this spoke of something far greater on the horizon.
It was then that he saw the light up ahead. Only this light was no sunshine of a bright and beautiful outside world. This was a search light, attached to a structure that could have put Oblivion to shame in the foreboding nature it exuded. Axel stopped. Intuition told him that going inside the place would be a step towards finding the answer to his problems yet the moment he entertained the idea, the trepidation only increased.
All in all, he was still a Nobody and that tended to work to his advantage when making decisions based on 'feelings'. He looked around and located a small red demon standing by a boat. Axel stepped up to him and they locked eyes. "So, how do I get across?"
"You interested in participating in the Hades Cup?"
"No, I just...want to go over there." Axel deemed it wise to be patient, having had some experience with the denizens of this world now.
"Ahhh, spectator huh? I really don't blame you. We've had some great battles for the past few days."
"Battles?" The words were out of Axel's mouth before he put two and two together: evidently in a epic mythological world, there was a Coliseum.
The demon gave him a bit of a funny look but didn't call him on it. "Yeah. It's either that Leon guy or that Cloud fellow now that the Keyblader and Hercules don't bother coming down here no more, but the new bloke Hades found has managed to even the score a little. Quite the oddball that one, but I suppose if Hades set him up to the task he's either a real nasty bit of work or he did something right awful when he was alive."
Axel ignored the last of it. "Leon, you say?"
"Yeah, Leon. Guess you've heard of him too?"
"What do I have to do to participate in these battles of yours?"
The demon looked Axel over and shrugged as if to say 'Your Funeral'. "Just sign up, is all."
The flaming pen and parchment that the increasingly threatening creature produced out of nowhere gave Axel the impression he was signing his life away yet again, but then Sora and Leon had come out of here clean hadn't they? Clumsily, he managed to scribble his name on the list as the creature held it up without putting the tip of the pen through the paper.
When they docked, the demon pointed Axel in the direction of a gate, and he walked through into an almost pitch-black arena. Nothing was happening yet and for the first time, Axel began to wonder what he'd gotten himself into. He'd entered this tournament for the chance to make contact with one of Sora's acquaintances. That wasn't what was troubling him. What was he supposed to fight with, and furthermore, who or what was it he was fighting, apart from Leon? If he couldn't make portals, then perhaps he couldn't summon his blades or control fire either. The experience with Hades had been quite unnerving in that regard. At that moment, the lights went up, and Axel mentally crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.
He soon found that Hades was at least true to his word. The Nobody's powers still flourished, and he cut through the first eight rounds with little trouble. Various creatures swarmed him, but even those that produced fire themselves soon fell to the blades of his chakrams.
Things were getting down to the wire now, and since the opponents had been getting harder as he went, he knew the second to last fight wouldn't be quite so easy. It would be a huge annoyance to fail now. Leon was the ultimate goal and since he already knew he was a top-ranking contestant, he'd be in the top-ranking spot on the roster. Other than that, he'd not bothered to check the ranks, so it was a total shock when he found himself face to face with someone he'd been sure he'd never see again.
"Demyx!?"
There was a stirring behind the other man's eyes, but although the former Number Nine's jaw opened, he attacked before spitting a single word out. Axel was hard pressed to dodge the wall of water sent his way.
Somewhere in the back of his frustrated mind, Axel processed the idea of "delightfully ironic torture." The Nocturne had hated fighting, and now it seemed he was being all but forced to.
Even though he'd never had much to do with Nine, Demyx's presence here was actually frightening, transcending even a lack of emotions. More than anything, he wanted to put as much distance between him and this opponent. It was uncommonly distracting and made it harder to avoid the attacks as a result. He kept reminding himself that Demyx was dead. Dead completely, not even a Nobody anymore and condemned to this. A fate he had a chance to escape. Finally, a flying uppercut sent the Nocturne flying, and when he crumpled upon landing, he didn't get up afterwards. The fight was called in Axel's favor but fate or maybe Hades himself, decided to remind Axel exactly what kind of broken glass he was walking on.
Two demons, one of whom he thought was the individual from the boat came to get Demyx's body. It was then that Axel realized that he'd not knocked his opponent out, as the two were literally forcing the Nocturne to stand, to prepare for the next battle. Axel caught his eye as they passed and immediately wished he hadn't.
"Axel." The acknowledgement held no more emotion than it ever had when Demyx had existed as a Nobody, but that gaze promised that there was torment far worse than losing your heart.
Just like that Demyx was gone again and a chorus of cheers alerted Axel to Leon's arrival even before the other man spoke.
"Another ex-Nobody?" His tone was annoyingly long-suffering and irritated.
Axel composed himself and turned to face Leon with a smirk, remembering what the Demon on the boat had let slip about 'the new guy'. Now that he knew who it was, he couldn't help but have a little pride. "Aw, don't like the fact that we're putting a dent in your record?"
Leon scowled. "I've got no problem taking you on. You're dead anyway."
"That's where you'd be wrong. I am not dead. Still lacking a heart, but not dead."
Actually dropping his weapon to his side in shock, Leon furrowed his brow in suspicion. "How is that possible?"
Axel could not have asked for a better opening. "How about this: If you win, I'll tell you." He raised his chakrams, and Leon brought his gunblade into a fighting stance once more.
"What do you want if you win?" Leon was no fool, though his tone suggested asking was a mere formality.
"When I win," Axel amended. "We'll talk."
To Be Continued...